How to Heal Yourself Holistically

The other day during my yoga class, the teacher shared an interesting thought which, since then, I have been mulling over. He reminded us that we are wholes. It’s a simple truth that I always forget, not thinking about how connected our bodies truly are.

Healing with Incorrect Logic

The common tendency (of which I pled guilty as charged) whenever something aches, or when we suffer an injury, is to focus all of the attention on that single area. By doing so, the affected part becomes isolated from the rest of our miraculous body.

Thinking about specific examples of when I had done this, I went back to when I last got pain in one of my knees and remembered how I started walking with a slight limp, and then avoided bending my leg all together.

Last week I ended the long working day with an acute headache and what did I do? Rub my temples in an attempt to relieve the pain. In every situation I could think about, I followed the same pattern: identify the area of pain and concentrate on it alone.

Heal Yourself Holistically

The words of my teacher resonated instantly with my behaviour, making the affected area become satellite to any other limb, muscle, or bone.

By forgetting how connected our internal tissues are, how our muscles hug our bones, how our blood circulates around from the very top of our head right down to the pinky toes, we will only ever reach a false source of our trouble. The real origin of our agony might be somewhere else.

Take for instance the popular headache. Our head is beautifully connected to our neck, the top of our spine and of our central nervous system. So next time your head gives you trouble, think about all the cells in your body that lead to that part.

Let your fingers follow the muscles from the neck to the shoulder and see whether you hold any tension there. Perhaps the eight hours you spend every day sitting in front of the computer is accumulating stress on that part of your body, locking your muscles and revealing in an acute headache.

We Are Wholes

Try comforting your ankle next time your knee is giving you a hard time, or your hip when it is your ankle which hurts. By realising that we are so much more than just the sum of our parts, we become mindful of our entire bodies, taking the first step to coming home to our true, whole selves.

by Mireya Semelas – Mireya is a declared avid reader and devoted yogi. And She’s fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, she would be able to save the world. Find out more about Mireya on her blog or follow her on Instagram.

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